


I Hope They Know I Tried

by itsharbour



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Catholic Prayers, Gen, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, I am so sorry, Injury, Klance if you squint, Lance (Voltron) Speaks Spanish, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Major Character Injury, this got way out of hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28674654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsharbour/pseuds/itsharbour
Summary: Of course good old Lancey-Lance would be the one to be kidnapped. It's not like the Galra could have nabbed a more useful Paladin during their last mission, right? Instead they're stuck with Lance, who has none of the information that they are currently torturing him for and Lance has only one thought running through his mind: how the hell is he going to get out of this?An incredibly belated Voltron Secret Santa present for Violet, who I hope will forgive me for being so incredibly late with this.TW: Blood and Gore, Violence, injury, angst,
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	I Hope They Know I Tried

The first thing he felt was the pain, thrumming through what seemed like every inch of his body and exploding from the back of his head. Lance let out a groan as consciousness crept in and the fog in his brain started to dissipate. He opened his eyes slowly. His brain swam as he tried to focus on the room around him, taking in his surroundings. He was in a dark room, the only light coming from the purple accents on the wall. His hands were tied up to the ceiling, above his head, with bulky metal shackles, his feet only just landing on the ground. Lance groaned. _Galra._

He couldn’t remember exactly how he had gotten there, but, looking down, he saw that he was still in his blue armour, so he assumed that he had been taken on a mission. Had they been on a mission? Lance honestly couldn’t remember. The last thing he remembered was being in the Castle hanger, doing his routine cleaning of the Lions.

 _Not surprising._ He heard the little voice at the back of his head say. _Of course, you’d be the one to get caught._

There was a familiar pressure in his chest at the thought. He _would_ be the one to be taken during a mission.

“Mierda.” He muttered under his breath.

“Good.” A deep voice said from behind him. “You’re awake.”

A shiver went down Lance’s spine. No, he didn’t recognize the voice, but ominous voices coming from the dark were almost always a bad thing. The flashing neon sign kind of bad. The Galra was coming up from behind him then around where he was hanging, boots slowly hitting the metal floor in a forebodingly slow rhythm. If Lance closed his eyes, he’d be able to discern the distinct “heel-step” pattern of the alien’s pointed gait.

Lance swallowed thickly, before putting on his most charming smile. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s rude to keep a gentleman waiting?”

The Galra soldier said nothing as he came into view.

Now, most of the Galran soldiers were nothing to write home about, but this one was particularly ugly. He was tall, in the same way that most of the Galra are taller than humans, and his fur is a deeper purple than others that Lance has seen and fought against. The darker fur colour only serves to contrast the criss-crossing scars along the alien’s face, almost like his face had been put through a grate made of knives. There was half of an ear missing and Lance could see a few chipped fangs through the Galra’s half-smirk.

Lance’s heartbeat quickened at that smirk, but he kept him smile on his face. “Not the best looking,” he shrugged as well as he could with his arms tied up, “but I’m sure I can work some movie makeover magic on you. Then all the other Galra’s will be fighting to take you to the space prom.” 

The Galra was unmoved. “Where is your castle ship?” He asked, his voice gruff and quiet, smirk still present on his face.

“I don’t know.” Lance said, with surprising honesty. “What I _do_ know is how we can hide those scars on your fa—”

He was cut off when the Galra’s meaty fist pounded into his stomach and Lance felt his guts crash into his lungs, forcing all the air out in a violent huff.

“Answer my question, Paladin.” The Galra commanded, still in that eerily quiet voice. A voice that made Lance almost shudder with fear. Almost. “Where is the castle ship?”

He coughed. “I told you already. I don’t know.”

The Galra smiled. “Maybe we should try another question.” He stood square in front of Lance, his broad shoulders moving back. “Every time you and your team come onto our base, the little Green one puts a little stick into our computers, and everything stops working. How does it work?”

Lance couldn’t help himself… He barked out a laugh and kept laughing. “Oh buddy, you are so screwed.” He said between laughs. “You are so monumentally screwed. Your bosses are going to be so pissed off at you.”

The Galra arched a brow. “Why is that?”

He took a deep breath and calmed himself down enough to stop the laughter. Nothing was going to be funny for a while. Lance lifted his head up as high as he could so his eyes would meet the Galra’s eyes. He put in every ounce of bravado and courage that he had into his eyes, wanting to look reckless, fearless.

“Because you kidnapped the wrong Paladin.”

* * *

Lance grunted as he was roughly thrown back into his cell for the night. He struggled to keep his sight from swimming as he was turned his head to look at the ceiling and took stock of his injuries for the day.

Based on what he remembered from the Garrison’s mandatory basic medical training, he was sure that he had a concussion based on his dizziness, nausea, and the fact that he couldn’t remember most of what happened during his most recent torture session. Something smelled like rotten flesh, but he didn’t know what. The burning pain had dulled in his leg, so he assumed that his body had gotten used to the level of pain, or he was going into shock.

Lance knew that the leg was broken. They had taken a tool that looked like the Galran equivalent of a sledgehammer and brought it down on it early in the session as punishment for his escape attempt the night before. At least, he thought it was the night before. His memories were fuzzy.

He took a deep breath in. “Come on, Lancey-Lance. Time to focus.”

Using all the strength that he had, he pulled himself towards the back wall of his cell. Breathing through the pain, he got himself up in a sitting position. He felt a stabbing pain from his side, so he could add a few broken ribs to his mental list of injuries. That wasn’t important now though.

“Ave María. Llena eres de gracia,” Lance muttered under his breath, hands grasped together in his lap. He didn’t think Santa Maria would mind if he couldn’t put his hands up to his heart just right now. “El Señor es contigo. Bendita tu eres entre todas las mujeres. Y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre: Jesús. Santa María,” he breathed out, the name more prayer than any other word he was muttering, “Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.” Lance could see his mother’s face in his mind’s eye. “Amen.

“Lo siento, mama, por favor, perdóname. No puedo continuar así. Van a percibir qui soy un idiota que no sabes nada. No tengo nadie para ellos.” He felt a lump rise in his throat as tears started falling from his eyes. “Y ahora me mataran. Lo siento, mama, verdad, intente. Prometo que fue valiente en el final. Te quiero, mama.” 

Lance looked at his hands, fingers wound together like the rosaries he grew up holding like a lifeline in church. He tried to remember the last time he sat in church, fidgeting in the stifling humidity and heat of the Cuban summer, between his father and his eldest brother. If he focused hard enough, he could smell the scents coming from burning incense and candles and the sickly sweet perfume that the older women used to try to cover up the smell of the sweat that fell down in beads on their Sunday best, unable to be kept away by flapping paper fans.

Maybe God would answer him if he was kneeling on a worn wooden pew, eyes shut tight and hands clutching those worn wooden beads. 

The cell door slid open and Lance sighed. The reprieve was short this time. From the shadow that came from the open door, he knew that it was the Galra who had been torturing him for the past few days (weeks?). If Lance had learned his name, he had forgotten it between blows to the head and drugs coursing in delirium through his veins.

“I hope you had a good rest, Paladin.” His jailor said in that low, quiet voice that Lance had learned to fear. “These past few hours—” _hours?_ “Should have been enough to let you think about what we talked about.”

Lance stared at him blankly. “What did we talk about?”

“Have you already forgotten?” He cocked his head to the side, like a quizzical cat. “Do humans have such short memories? How do you get anything done?”

“We have great memories.” Lance said through gritted teeth. “But long and short-term memory can be a bit spotty when your brain is slowly being turned into a milkshake. So, I’m sorry if I have to ask you to remind me of our last conversation.”

The Galra took a step into the cell, his face still invisible in the shadow of the light behind him. “I will give you the summary then, Paladin. Either you tell us how the Green Paladin uses their stick to break through our security systems, or we find another use for you.”

Lance half-threw his arms up, too tired to lift more than an inch out of his lap. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, cabrón. I don’t know anything.”

The Galra nodded, as if he already knew what Lance’s answer would have been. “Very well, Paladin. You have chosen your fate.”

The Galra took a step back and the cell door closed, leaving the space dark and silent again. Maybe God would hear him this time.

* * *

The first flaw in his plan was his leg. Lance had been avoiding it and now it was a problem. It was broken and clearly infected from where the bone was sticking out of the flesh. Clearly, not his finest moment, the whole avoiding it thing, but he had been training to be a pilot at the Garrison and not a medic. Injuries to his own body still made his stomach turn.

He had ripped up the shirt from the prisoner’s garbs that the Galra had changed him into after confiscating his Paladin uniform and made a temporary bandage and tourniquet for his leg. He cursed the Galra for making his whole leg absolutely useless, but he gathered that this had been the point.

The concussion was going to be a problem in the escape too. Lance could barely stand up without getting dizzy and disoriented, but he knew that he was going to have to get over it or else the plan wasn’t going to work. He knew he couldn’t run or fight his way out with the injuries he had, but he was also a smart kid who knew strategy.

So, Lance laid down on the floor, laying his cheek against the cold metal, and waited. He knew that they would come.

As he breathed in and out, he thought of his mother, praying in his heart and mind with her image in his mind, and his father and siblings, healthy and happy in the sun-drenched Cuban beach. Lance missed them so much. He missed their smiles and their laughs, even their anger and their tantrums. He knew that Veronica would probably find a santero to bring his soul back just to kill him herself for dying out in space without her permission. He missed his nieces and nephews, who he would never see grow up too fast in front of his eyes.

Lance saw the faces of his team as his breathing grew slower and steadier. He knew that Pidge and Hunk would be hit the hardest if he didn’t make it out. His best friend would lose a platonic soul mate and Pidge would lose a brother. It made a vice tighten around his heart. She had just gotten Matt back and he didn’t know what losing brother of the heart would do to her. He was sure that Keith and Allura would be sad, but they would hold the team together enough to keep the Paladins on track and still saving the world. He would definitely miss that mullet though, as much as he wanted to take a pair of kitchen shears to it sometimes.

He’d miss Coran though. A lot more than he’d originally thought. In his darkest moments of sadness and longing for home, Coran was always there to get him out of his head. Shiro would never forgive himself for the death of one of his young soldiers.

Lance heard the soft hiss of the cell door opening. _Showtime_ , he thought to himself and closed his eyes.

“Go wake him up, Vrak.” He heard a Galra voice say.

There was a grunt and then footsteps come his way. “Wake up, Paladin.” Lance stayed completely still. “I told you to WAKE UP!” The second Galra screamed at him before placing a well-placed kick to the gut. The pain welled up inside him, but he kept every muscle still. This was why he played leads in school plays. Lancey-Lance could act circles around the other kids when he wanted to. “I think it’s dead, Goruk.”

“Are you sure?” Goruk asked.

He felt furry hands pawing at his arms and legs for a minute before coming up to his face and squeezing it. “It’s not moving. And it’s kind of hot and sweaty.”

“Just our luck.” He heard Goruk sigh. “The Paladin of Voltron dies on our watch. We’re going to have to tell the Captain.” Lance could hear the disdain that Goruk was feeling at the idea of telling whoever this Captain was. “And the paperwork…”

“Do you know what happens to human bodies when they die?” Vrak asked.

“No idea. We’ve never killed a human on this base before.”

“What if they explode like the Carmiums?” Vrak said, with a tinge of terror in his voice. “Or turn to acid like the T’Khatiks?”

“The mess they make…”

“We should take the body to the morgue. Now.”

“Grab the body.” Goruk said, urgency in his voice. “Let’s move quickly.”

Hands jostled his body until Lance had been turned onto his back before being unceremoniously flung over Vrak’s broad shoulders. He could feel his insides shifting painfully into his bruised muscles and the broken rips stabbing his lungs. 

It was like his whole body was a bruise as the Galra started walking out of the cell and into the hallway. Lance opened one eye, vision swimming, to see that they were making their way through the Galra base before closing it again. He tried to keep his breathing shallow and silent. _Play dead_ , he thought to himself.

“Do you know what they were going to do with it?” Vrak asked.

He heard a short huff. “The Captain was probably going to throw it into the arena. Probably wouldn’t have lasted more than a few dobosh if it died this quickly.”

“For such weak creatures, the Paladins sure are good at causing chaos.” Goruk agreed.

Lance really wished that he had his bayard right now to shoot these guards. He may have been the weak link in Team Voltron, but the others were strong. They would have escaped almost immediately. He would bet his face cream on Pidge hacking her way out of the cell in five minutes flat if she had been kidnapped.

Suddenly, there was a loud sound, and klaxons began ringing through the hall. Lance opened an eye again to see the hallway lights turn a dull red and flash to the beat of the ringing bells.

“What now?” Goruk groaned. Lance shut his eyes again as more Galra guards started running past his captors. “What’s happening?”

“Voltron.” A passing voice said. “They’ve invaded the base. The Captain has called everyone to grab their blasters and fight them off. They’re probably here for the Blue Paladin.”

“Just our luck.”

“Is it dead?”

“Yes. Found it dead in it’s cell.”

“Maybe we can add a few more Paladins to the pile.” The other voice said. Lance was certain that he could hear a hint of joy in the passing Galra’s voice. It made him want to throw up.

“Vrak, we need to go help. Leave the body in the supply closet, we’ll come back for it later.”

“I think we should take it to the morgue.” Vrak had stopped walking, which Lance was a bit thankful for.

“It’s not like it’s going to get up and start walking around, Vrak. Leave it in the closet.”

“What if it explodes.”

“If it explodes,” Goruk said slowly. “We will clean it up after we kill the rest of the Paladins of Voltron.” Lance heard the familiar hiss of opening space doors before his body exploded in pain. The guard had thrown him straight into the supply closet. This time, he almost definitely passed out. _Stay awake_ , he told himself. _Whatever you do, stay awake_. Lance stayed as still as he could until he heard the door close before letting his breath out in a loud hiss.

“Hijo de puta!” He swore quietly as he brought his fist up to his mouth. “Coño!” Squeezing his eyes shut, he bit into his hand hard, muffling the sounds of the screams of pain he had been fighting back. _Just stay awake_ , he told himself, but could feel hot tears falling from his eyes as he fought to keep them back.

“Vamanos.” Lance told himself, bringing his arms below him to push himself up. He needed to get up and find a way out. Maybe there would be something in this storage closet to help him escape. Maybe, by some grace of God, he would get out of this alive.

Lance looked around. The storage room was mostly empty. There were a few cables and wires on shelves that were seemingly part of the wall. A stack of metal rods was leaning against the wall in the corner next to a box of dejected tablets and Lance could see a few of them had cracked screens.

With a groan, Lance dragged himself to the shelves and used them to lift himself up. He was suddenly glad for the years of swimming as a child that had gifted him with his strong, broad shoulders and Keith’s relentless team training regiment since he had taken over as Black Paladin.

This was the first time that Lance had stood up. He didn’t know how long it had been but based on how much pain was coursing through his body, he assumed that it had been a while. He took a deep breath, trying to fight his swimming head and focus on the task at hand. He leaned heavily against the shelves, putting almost all of his weight on them as he grasped for the metal rods next to him.

As he lifted one up, he was thankful that they weren’t too heavy. He reached down to his leg and released the tied-up piece of fabric that was covering the festering wound on his thigh. The smell hit him like a truck.

The place where the Galra had hit his leg was still oozing and hot to the touch. Lance tried as best he could to not look at it while he retied the makeshift bandage to keep the metal rod flush with his leg. In between deep breaths, Lance grabbed the coiled cables and wound them as tightly as he could around his leg, making a makeshift splint.

“Okay, Lancey-Lance,” he said to himself. “Time to see if this works.” Tentatively, he put a bit of weight on his leg while still leaning heavily on the shelf. The pain was terrible, but not as bad as before.

He tried to take a step.

And almost fell down, before catching himself with the wall. “Mierda!” he hissed. The leg wasn’t going to take much weight no matter how hard he tried, and he was going to have to figure out something on the fly. But everything was heavy, and he was so very tired. Leaning heavily on the wall, Lance dragged himself up and put a hand up to the control panel, opening the door.

The hall was silent, but the Klaxons were still ringing, and the red emergency flood lights were still bathing the hall in pulsing glow. Lance felt a sigh of relief escape his lips as he saw that the hall was empty, the other Galra soldiers on the base probably all concentrated wherever the Paladins were fighting them off.

Lance stepped out into the hall, dragging his leg behind him and leaning on the walls for support. If he could find some sort of control panel, he could try to send a signal to Pidge to let them know where he was. He didn’t know how he would do it without one of Pidge’s little memory sticks, especially since he didn’t know how to read Galran, but he was sure he’d be able to do something to it.

Like most Galra ships, everything was sleek and straight. The walls just plain steel with the purple light accents running through them like veins and arteries, twisting and winding through the ship. Beads of sweat ran down his face as Lance breathed heavily, his mind repeating the mantra: _just keep moving._ Black spots were starting to invade his vision, but he blinked them back. He just needed to make it to a control panel or computer of some sort. Then he would be done. He would be okay.

“Lance?” He heard from behind him, and Lance thought his heart would finally give out.

“Mullet.” Lance said, stopping in his tracks. With the image of Keith in his mind and the relief that came with a friendly voice, it was like his body finally had permission to stop. Lance didn’t even feel pain as he slid down the wall onto the ground, vision swimming with tears flooding his eyes and blood thumping in his ears.

“Stay with me, Lance.” He hadn’t seen Keith move, but he was there, holding Lance in his arms and shaking him. “The rest of the team is going to be so happy to see you. You have to be awake to see them.”

“They’re okay?” Lance asked, feeling the adrenaline that had kept him going slowly washing away.

“Yeah, they’re worried about you, but they’re okay.” He could feel Keith shifting, getting a better hold around his shoulders. “You have to stay awake so that you can see them.”

Lance blinked heavily. Keith was here and the team was okay. “I’m going to fall asleep, Mullet.”

He could feel Keith shaking him slightly. “I can’t let you sleep, Lance. The team’s coming to help me get you.”

“Sorry, Keith.” He said softly. “Tell them I’m sorry.” The last thought that ran through his mind before the fatigue that he had been fighting flooded him and his consciousness slipped away was that the hope that his friends knew that he had tried.

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty. Violet, I am so sorry that this is as late as it is. Like, so very sorry. My computer flat out died in the second week of December and I lost everything that I had ever written and had to basically start from scratch after New Year once I got it back with a new hard drive. 
> 
> I definitely owe you for your patience, so please let me know if you would like me to fulfill any other fic prompts to make up for it!


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